Steve who runs this site owns the one in the pic - he must have missed this post.
It's Japanese, made in the late 60s, and was badged with various brand names - Appollo, Kawai, Sekova, Kimberly and probably others. Could be mistaken for a Teisco also, as Kawai and Teisco merged around '68.
Cool guitar!
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Hey gentlemen, sorry for the delay in responding to this post. I saw it initially, wanted to check a few facts before responding and then forgot about it. Heres what I know:
From what I can tell these Kawai's first appeared in 1969 and were produced up until 1975 or so. Simonm's right about the variety of brand badges you see on them, the two most common brand badges I have seen are Apollo and Kimberly. The guitars distributed through Lafayette Electronics Company carried the Kimberly brand.
About 5 years ago at a local guitar show, I watched my friend Don hand a guy 5 twenties for a very clean example of one of these Kawais. When we got it home and started throughly testing it, I was very impressed. It had nice low action and produced some very useable tones from the 4 pickups. My only issue was the fact that I need a little gap somewhere under the strings to pick. With 4 pickup guitars I have a tendency to strike the top of a pickup with the tip of my pick and cause "clicking" noises when I play. I could probably improve my technique and learn not to do this, but it is easier to just play guitars with fewer than 4 pickups.
I think these are fine guitars for the money although I doubt you will find one for $100 these days. sb
From what I can tell these Kawai's first appeared in 1969 and were produced up until 1975 or so. Simonm's right about the variety of brand badges you see on them, the two most common brand badges I have seen are Apollo and Kimberly. The guitars distributed through Lafayette Electronics Company carried the Kimberly brand.
About 5 years ago at a local guitar show, I watched my friend Don hand a guy 5 twenties for a very clean example of one of these Kawais. When we got it home and started throughly testing it, I was very impressed. It had nice low action and produced some very useable tones from the 4 pickups. My only issue was the fact that I need a little gap somewhere under the strings to pick. With 4 pickup guitars I have a tendency to strike the top of a pickup with the tip of my pick and cause "clicking" noises when I play. I could probably improve my technique and learn not to do this, but it is easier to just play guitars with fewer than 4 pickups.
I think these are fine guitars for the money although I doubt you will find one for $100 these days. sb
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